The 2024 UniSQ Alumni Book Club begins on March 21 when we discuss Manage Like a Mother – Leadership Lessons Drawn from the Wisdom of Mom with author Valerie Cockerell.
Mothers wrote the playbook on leadership with their no-nonsense approach. It takes common-sense basic principles to be an effective leader, the very same principles one would apply to raising children. When you can successfully teach, nurture, and develop kids, multitask your way through their childhood and survive their teenage years, you can lead a team effectively. In “Manage like a Mother”, the best practices that are fundamental to success are laid out in a pragmatic and practical way so you can apply the no-nonsense wisdom of moms to your leadership approach.
Register for the online discussion with Valerie on Thursday 21 March from 7-8pm Brisbane time.
Our second book of the year, In Body, In Mind, is a philosophical novel by UniSQ alumnus Andrew Fookes.
Sam Kane is an academic psychologist; his life and work is an expression of his mind. Sam’s wife Rachel is a veteran athlete who has demonstrated the prowess of her body in sports played at the highest levels. They’re an odd couple, with differing abilities, passions and world views. They finish their careers and face a future of declining health, loss and uncertainty. This story explores what it is to use wisely the time we have left, to choose what we must remember, what we should forget, who we could forgive, for what we must make amends, and eventually, how we might say goodbye.
Register for the online discussion with Andrew on Thursday 23 May from 7-8pm Brisbane time.
Our third book of the year was written by former UniSQ staff member, Lynne Hunt and is titled Making Meaning: Making Sense.
This book tells stories about the meanings we all make in life. Lynne’s stories make you think. Why, for example, are there endless jokes about mothers-in-law but very few about fathers-in-law? How do we make sense of secrets, school, university, customer service, caregiving, medical advocacy, politics, feminism, courtesy, religion, travel, music, and one-liners? It’s philosophy without the boring bits. All these stories happened. They are intimate, universal, and unbelievably true.
All proceeds from the sale of Lynne’s book will be donated to an international student scholarship fund for the University of Southern Queensland. Register for the online discussion with Lynne on Thursday 22 August from 7-8pm Brisbane time.
Our final book of the year, Ladon’s Hourdes, was written by UniSQ alumnus Carole Ramsey.
In this book, the universe is on the brink of destruction due to Henry Bonnington’s machinations. Having accidentally killed the leader of the group, Canath, Henry set out yet again on a two-week experiment that changed the lives of the scholars who travelled with him through the Curtain of Time.
The work of Jung and Pauli gave him the understanding that underlying our everyday consciousness of time-space, cause and effect, there is a substratum in which everything that is, was and ever could be, already lies. But, gaining entry to this plenum was a huge, calculated risk which he was determined to take, notwithstanding the havoc it can cause to the entire existence of the universe. Interwoven through the text are philosophical and psychological ideas that inform Carole’s work as a philosopher.
Register for the online discussion with Carole on Thursday 24 October from 7-8pm Brisbane time.
